It was a dark and stormy night.....

Why is it that the most heart wrenching conversations with your kids never come when you are prepared for it? I was day 4 of being sick, had just coached Savannah's soccer practice in the rain, and finished the boys open house at 845 pm. Nobody has eaten and Jack and I are in the drive thru lane of Taco Bell watching a phenomenal lightning storm, waiting to order some long over due food. "Mom" he says so very softly, "I don't have any friends at school." I look over at him and his expression is so full of sadness I want to break down and cry. After all, we are now 4 weeks into school, surely he has a couple of friends. I ask him what he means, because he's a funny kid, I'm sure he has friends. "No Mom, not one friend in my classes." Apparently a girl in his strings class has been teasing him and humiliating him (to quote him) and now all the kids just stare at him and don't want to be his friend. There are so many different feelings I have about this. How can a spawn of some demonic entity be allowed to make fun of my Jack. (Okay, I know slightly overboard, but I'm mad, and sad, and I can call her names on my blog. I'm sure she's a really nice little girl, who can just be mean!) I'm gloriously happy because he hasn't punched her in the nose! And for those of you who know Jack well, he is showing some true growth here and maturity. Because 3 years ago, he would have just popped her for doing that. My heart breaks. He is such a funny, bright, smart, slightly annoying kid who is so fiercely loyal that he is probably the best friend you could ever have. I think my heart hurts more for him, because it's always him. It's him that has the battles to overcome; in health, school, friendships, everything. He has to fight so hard for everything. I can only think that there must be some great future for him, that he has to learn to fight for everything now so it comes easy for him later. It's not all sad though, there is a happy ending to this story.....forward to the next morning. We are late to school, I pull in the driveway and the boys dash off, Tristan to drop off his violin and Jack to make the long walk down the drive to the doors. I keep creeping ahead in the traffic. Coming the other way down the sidewalk is a dear friend of Tristan's, walking with another friend of his. N sticks out his fist across his friend as Jack gets near and he and Jack bump fists. No words, just knucks. And everyone goes on their way. I sit here writing that with tears in my eyes all over again. He could not possibly know how much that small gesture meant, not only to Jack, but to his mom who watched from the car in the driveway.

Has 15 Years Together Made us Weirder?

Is it really that weird to carry around a husband on a stick? I don't know, not for our family.... Since military duties take him away more often than not and we like to still feel that he is a part of our lives (especially 15th wedding anniversaries!) we tote around this dad on a stick and take pictures of us all together. I know you probably are saying, okay that's really pretty strange, but honestly it's not stranger than a lot of other things that happen in our house. *Stacy engulfing the whole entire grill on fire *having to figure out how to make our dog throw up just in case he ate poison *Jack burning Tristan with hot marshmallows *Jaesen living here for 3 years and still has trouble finding my mom's house, really? *Locking my own kids in the bathroom until they calm down *My kids who decide to cut their hair, their siblings hair, or shave various body parts, where does that come from? *The day that Jack decided to paint his toenails pink and then freaked out because it wouldn't come off. So you see, carrying a head on a stick is really not that odd. Happy Anniversary to my husband who is not here but we are carrying on and eating well without you! Love you babe.

Why so much drama in the morning?

This morning started like every other morning, me getting up and grabbing coffee. Then I moved on to wake the 12 year old and get him moving. Unfortunately, his bad attitude from the night before rolled right over to the wee hours of the morning. He is mad because I won't spot him $200 for a pair of Beats headphones. I know what you are thinking....what a horrible mother! Last night I went into uber detail about what $200 buys for this house, the list of things I continuously want and don't get, how much food costs these days and how if he had asked for them for Christmas he probably would have gotten them. I think maybe I had one glass too many of wine last night. Even Jaesen fell asleep during my 35 minute tirade. This resulted in said child pretending he was asleep or didn't know who we were. Fast forward to this morning and attitude central, luckily it was Jaesen who took him to school. At 8:00 I got the other two moving....and for whatever reason the attitude seemed to have permeate the household. Savannah got dressed and came to me with a new pair of earrings to put in her ears. First mistake: I agreed to do this before school. First one came out no problem, second one had blood on both front and back of ear that was dried. It hurt. I know it hurt, I have earrings too and that hurts. But the drama....the child laid her head on her arms on the bathroom counter, screaming and crying, "Why did I get my ears pierced? This was a horrible choice!" At this point I was screaming the same thing in my head while trying to console her and get her to stop screaming in that pitch that makes your skin crawl! So then I see that she has hair caught inside of the earring hole and I tell her I'm going to pull it out. Well that sucked! It came out with a huge blood clot attached to it and immediately started dripping blood. This only elevated the shrieking. At this point it's now 8:20 and Jack comes into the bathroom and wants to know what's with all the yelling. I give Savannah Motrin while explaining to Jack the earring dilemma to which he helpfully says, "Well you shouldn't have gotten your ears pierced!" Thank you Jack for that oh so helpful advice. We now have to leave in 15 minutes and aren't even close to being ready. I tell Savannah we need to get new ones in, clean her ears and put the one in the not ouchy side, no problem there. She wanted to try putting in the ouchy one but couldn't get it so she tells me to put it in slowly. Yeah right, I'm gonna jam it in there quick because it's going to hurt. But of course I'm nodding okay honey I'll go slow. The screaming ramps up again as I force the earring in and snap on the back. After drying those tears I get hair done, teeth brushed and even faces washed but am now ramping up my volume so we are not late for school. Fortunately they eat breakfast there...As we ran out the door to the car all I wanted to do was get into bed with a mimosa, these kind of mornings are few and far between but in hindsight they do make me laugh, which is good because otherwise I would drink at 8:30 in the morning, which so far doctors have not recommended!